


Epilogue

by Drowned_in_Feels



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bittersweet, Coping, Death from Old Age, Destiel - Freeform, Growing Old Together, Heaven, How Supernatural (TV) Could End, Loss, Love, M/M, Old Age, POV Castiel (Supernatural), Post-Canon, Reminiscing, Retired Hunter Winchesters (Supernatural), Retirement, What happens after the show ends, because they die from old age and it's not harrowing at all, but just so you know sam and dean do die, i didn't want to put a warning for major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:01:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21551200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drowned_in_Feels/pseuds/Drowned_in_Feels
Summary: Many years have passed since Sam and Dean died from old age. Castiel is back in Heaven where a young angel asks him if he ever experienced love on Earth.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 10
Kudos: 57





	Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> I am aware that this is not fully canon-compliant but please enjoy anyway.

“Have you ever known love?”

There was a young angel looking up at Castiel, his eyes big and inquisitive. The angel trainees often came up to Cas with questions but they were rarely this personal.

It had been many years since Cas had last been to Earth, since he had last had a reason to go down there. He had since started a teaching and mentoring job in Heaven. Their forces were still diminished and recovering from all the apocalypses that had happened so long ago so they had started recruiting new angels. And of course, they had to be trained in morals, values and rules but also in combat. Cas mainly taught combat classes.

Castiel was amongst the oldest and most experienced angels in Heaven so it seemed obvious to him that he should pass on his knowledge to the new recruits. He stayed out of Heaven's business for the most part but still felt obligated to help where he could. When he returned to Heaven after all of his years on Earth, they even offered him a management position but Cas declined. He wanted no part in ruling Heaven and making decisions that could impact all of humanity,

Instead, he opted for the mentoring position. His students loved him and looked up to him, he could tell. They did whatever he told them, were always eager to learn from him and constantly questioned him about his time on Earth. His story had become somewhat of a legend amongst angels.

He didn't like being asked about his life with the Winchesters very much so besides of his lessons, he stuck to himself most of the time. The memory of Sam and Dean still pained him and he didn't like to be reminded of it.

Life in Heaven was, in short, tedious. Cas missed his time with the Winchesters. Sure, they had been in constant danger and facing threats larger than what they could handle but there was a certain thrill in it. They had a purpose. Now, Cas had a 9-5 teaching job.

Of course, Cas had always known that he would outlive them. They were mortal, he was not. It had always been possible that they would all die in one of their many fights. Sam and Dean even once confessed to him that they didn't expect to live past forty.

But they did live past forty. In fact, they both lived past eighty. Cas still fondly remembered the day they beat Chuck. The day they got their lives back. That was the last time they faced a danger that they feared they could not master. And that day, a weight was lifted off their shoulders that they had forgotten they were carrying.

Afterwards, they settled down. Sometimes they went out on hunts. Dean took a part-time job fixing cars. Sam enrolled in college again. And Cas, he stayed with Dean.

“Castiel?”

The voice pulled Cas out of his thoughts. The young trainee was still standing in front of him. Cas tried to remember what his question was. Right. Love.

“Have I ever known love?”, Cas said, “As a matter of fact, I have.”

To most angels, love was a foreign concept. Of course, they understood love in its general sense. “Love thy neighbour” and all that. But they didn't hold personal love for one another. They didn't understand it. Cas had once tried to explain it to another angel, how you could care about another person so deeply that you would do anything for them. Give up your entire life and devote it to them. His explanations had been met with a blank stare of confusion. So, Heaven decided that love was a human emotion that angels had no need for. Cas silently shook his head at that decision but didn't care enough to convince them otherwise. There was no point to it anyway.

Cas had learned what love was and what power it held during his time on Earth. Sam and Dean had taught him that. From them, he learned about brotherly love and comradery and the importance of it.

And then, later in life, Dean had taught him about the importance of a different kind of love. Of course, they had always had certain feelings for each other, Cas just didn't have a word for them, or a way to deal with them. So, when Dean admitted to his feelings and what that meant for their relationship, Cas knew immediately that all he wanted was to stay with Dean for the rest of his life.

So they settled down together. Neither of them were exactly the romantic type so their lives didn't change drastically. They just became official, much to Sam's joy who seemed more ecstatic about the whole thing than Dean or Cas.

When Sam moved out of the bunker to go to college, Dean and Cas rented a nice little apartment for themselves in Lebanon. They wanted to stay close to the bunker since it held all of the hunting lore as well as their equipment for when they went on hunts but they also wanted something that was just nicer to live in. The bunker was underground after all. There was no sunlight, no view and no way to step away from the hunting life for a bit. So they found themselves a cute studio apartment with a balcony so that they could enjoy sunsets together.

Cas remembered one conversation that they had on that very balcony many years ago. Dean had just surpassed sixty years of age but you couldn't tell from his appearance, apart from a few wrinkles next to his eyes and a couple of grey streaks in his hair.

“What are you going to do when I'm gone?”, Dean had asked unprompted, while looking out over Lebanon.

Cas was sitting next to him, He tilted his head and squinted. “What do you mean?”

“I mean”, he gestured. “You're immortal, right? That means you won't die. Myself, on the other hand, I will.”

“But not anytime soon.”

“Yes but sooner or later, I will live my last day and die. And you will still be here. And I guess my question is just, what are your plans?”

“I don't have any.”

“Come on, Cas.” Dean scratched his neck. “I worry about this a lot. I worry that you're not gonna be alright.”

“I don't want you worrying about this. We still have so much time left and -”

“You don't know that”, Dean interrupted. “For all we know, I could have a heart attack tomorrow or get hit by a car or – I don't know!” He seemed anxious and exasperated.

“Dean, you spent your life hunting monsters and you worry about getting hit by a car?”

Dean shrugged. He seemed uneasy.

“Hey.” Cas moved closer to Dean and grabbed his hand. Dean looked at him. “When you pass away, whenever that may be, I will find a way to be alright. I don't want you to spend every day of your life worrying about your death and about what happens to me afterwards. Because I don't know what I will do when you're gone. And I don't want to think about it.”

Dean nodded. “Okay.”

“I understand how you feel”, Cas continued, “but I can't change the inevitable. And until then, I want to enjoy every single moment that I have with you. Okay?”

“Okay”, Dean repeated. Cas could see a few tears collecting in his eyes but he didn't think Dean wanted him to see that. So he simply pulled him into his arms and held him close. They sat like that for a while until Dean pulled away and wiped his face.

After that conversation, they continued living their lives. Sam stopped by every now and then on which occasions countless bottles of all kinds of alcohol were opened and tales of their glory days were retold.

Dean eventually retired from his job at the auto shop and even gave up on hunting. He said his bones were getting stiff and he didn't want to risk getting killed by a vampire or something because he was too proud to admit that he was getting old. He wanted to spend as much time with Cas as he could and if that meant retiring from hunting in order to lead a safer life, then Dean would retire from hunting. Being with Cas who did not age at all had made Dean very conscious of his own mortality.

He spent his last years writing his memoirs, with the help of Sam of course. To be honest, Sam did most of the actual writing. When they had finished their work, they gave it to Cas as a gift. “The Winchester Gospel”, they had titled it.

Sam died a few years before Dean did. Losing his brother took a big toll on him. Cas did his best to try and comfort him through his grief but he was never the same. Cas could watch him grow weaker and weaker by the day. Every night, they went to bed with the fear that Dean would not wake up the next morning. And one day, that fear came true.

Castiel gave him a hunter's funeral, just like Dean had asked him to. He stood silently in front of the burning wood and watched the flames climb into the sky. He held the Gospel in his hands and clung to it as if his life depended on it. He made a promise in front of the fire to keep their memories safe and to never forget them. When the fire had ceased and the last piece of ash had cooled down, Castiel left Earth for Heaven and never returned.

“And what was that like? Love, I mean.” The angel trainee in front of him was not done with his questions.

Cas was looking for the right words to explain to this person how strong love could be, how powerful it was and how much a person you love could mean to you. But whenever he attempted to start a sentence, he felt that his words didn't do the emotion justice. He thought about the Gospel and everything he did with the Winchesters. The bonds they build. The feelings he shared with Dean. How was he supposed to fit all of that into an explanation that this angel could understand? “It is indescribable to someone who has never experienced it”, he said in the end.

He wanted to say more, tell this angel all about his life with the Winchesters. How much he loved Dean and how much he missed him now that he was gone. How he couldn't bare to even think about going back to Earth because everything down there reminded him of Sam and Dean. How he was wasting his existence away in Heaven because he had lost his purpose. There was a coil in his stomach that tightened whenever he thought about them. The love he had felt down there was gone and it had left an aching hole in his heart.

“But you experienced it? The other teachers say only humans can feel it but you know humans better than anyone here so I wanted to ask you about that.”

Castiel's mind wandered back to all the years he spent with Dean. All the memories they made and what it felt like to be close to him. He remembered holding Dean in his arms. He remembered the scent of his clothes after a long day in the auto shop. He remembered the sound of his laughter when Cas didn't get one of his pop culture references. He remembered Dean getting really flirty with him after a certain number of drinks. He remembered watching the sunset over Lebanon together. He remembered his smile and his eyes and the way he used to look at Cas as if he was the best thing in the world. He remembered looking at Dean in the same way. “What the others say is not true. Anybody can feel it, just as long as you find the right person.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Please leave some feedback! <3


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